Saras Salil goes in for revamp from July 1, hikes cover price to Rs 6

Saras Salil, the Hindi fortnightly magazine from the Delhi Press Group, is gearing up to sport a new look from July 1, 2006. Along with the change in its looks, Saras Salil, which sports the tagline ‘Raj Aur Samaj Ki Khari Aawaj’, has also increased its cover price by Re 5 to Rs 6 from July 1.

The looks of the magazine were last changed when it completed its 300th edition in August 2005. There have been continuous improvements in the magazine, but according to Anant Nath, Director, Delhi Press Group, “This time we have done it on a much more comprehensive basis.” The changes have been done by the Group’s in-house team.

Explaining the rationale behind changing the looks of the magazine, Nath said, “I think each magazine has to change with time. Somehow we felt that we should give it a more serious look as well. For example, the logo has changed, it gives a stronger message and then visually it has become more appealing.”

Added Jai Prakash Pandey, Assistant Editor, Saras Salil, “When we launched the magazine in 1993, we took into account those people who, despite cherishing a desire to read, could not afford to subscribe to costly magazines and newspapers. The scope of television was limited too. But now with the IT revolution, we felt the need to change its get-up as per the feedback from our readers and advertisers.”

On the reason behind the nominal price revision, Nath said, “We are in a price sensitive market. The magazine is very accessible to the reader, so we don’t want to take away that accessibility from the reader. The mission of the magazine is to reach as many people as we can and give them meaningful wholesome reading material.”

According to Nath, the content of the magazine would remain more or less the same, but readers could look forward to it being more visually appealing. Elaborating more on the reasons behind the change, Nath said, “Basically, we used to get feedback from advertisers that the magazine is something that is not very fit to their advertising environment and moreover, readers are also changing over time. To cater to both the customers, the readers and the advertising community, we felt the need to upgrade the overall look of the magazine.”

Apart from being more eye catching, Saras Salil will lay more thrust on local flavour. According to Pandey, “The magazine will see an overall change with better paper quality and modern look in layout. More visuals to the contents have been added and masthead too has been changed.”

Pandey also indicated that matrimonial ads would be carried at a nominal cost varying between Rs 50 and Rs 100.

Saras Salil currently has eight editions – Bihar-Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh-Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh, Gujarat-Maharashtra, West Bengal-North East, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh-Delhi-Haryana-Punjab and a national edition. Besides, it is also published in Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati and Marathi languages.

Nath said that there was scope of coming out with Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada editions in the future as well as making Saras Salil a weekly. However, he made it clear that his plans for Saras Salil would only take shape some time next year.